VERY suggestive of the force and persistence of the Spanish character is the fact that the only Spanish artists of recent years who have become notably distinguished are those who have remained true to the traditions of their School. Academic encouragement has been given to the production of historical pictures, which cover large quantities of canvas but excite little interest. On the other hand, those painters who have acquired a European and American reputation have all based their art on naturalism.

The first of these in order of time was Mariano Fortuny, whose La Vicaria, better known in America as The Spanish Marriage, when it made its first appearance in Paris in 1870, created a sensation. The scene, it will be remembered, is a sacristy, profusely embellished with rococo decorations. The costumes of the figures are those of Goya’s day; the actions and gestures piquantly natural and the characterization of each happily individualized. But the chief charm of the picture lies in the marvelous treatment of the light. Fortuny, after pursuing the academic routine and capturing the Prix de Rome, obtained an engagement to accompany the Spanish troops in a little war with Morocco. The splendor of Southern coloring opened his eyes to the magic of light. Henceforth his pictures became miracles of luminosity. The most powerful were La Vicaria, Choosing the Model and The Rehearsal; all rococo subjects in which the light is splintered into a myriad tiny reflections. But the finer work, in an artistic sense, is to be found in his water-colors. These are executed with extraordinary fluency and expression, marvels of naturalistic characterization, flooded broadly with glowing luminosity. Fortuny lived only five years after his remarkable dÉbut, dying in 1874 at the age of thirty-six.

Among those who were influenced by him, the most notable in imitating his virtuosity were Edoardo Zamacois, Antonio Casanova y Estorach and Fortuny’s brother-in-law, Raimundo de Madrazo. On the other hand, the artist who has been most happy in uniting virtuosity with a gift of naturalism is Francisco Pradilla. He has painted decorations full of joie de vivre and the spirit of romance: popular merry-makings, camp-life and scenes along the sea-shore; spontaneous in execution, abounding with zest and aglow with color. Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida has followed in his footsteps, with a longer stride and heavier tread. His works have the zest of Pradilla’s, but neither the refinement of virtuosity nor the versatility and subtlety of color. His naturalism is of the obvious type.

In contrast to him is Ignacio Zuloaga, an artist in whom has been re-incarnated much of the diablerie and subtlety of Goya. Since the latter no other has dipped so deeply into the grotesqueries of Spanish life, while in a thoroughly modern vein he explores the psychology of his subjects. These include a diversity of types of femininity, subtly analysed and interpreted by means, particularly, of expressive color-schemes. Zuloaga, to-day, is not only the most characteristically Spanish of the artists of Spain, but the most advanced of them in his feeling for expression and in his faculty of rendering it.